Q When the President spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to
her, she offered prayers that the President would not veto the S-CHIP,
State Children's Health Insurance Program. Has the President changed his
view?

MS. PERINO: I didn't -- I wasn't there for the conversation. I know that
they did speak. The President was happy to take a phone call from the
Speaker, as he always is. They had a conversation in which Speaker Pelosi
asked the President not to veto the bill. The President has been very
clear for months that if the bill came to him in its current form, that he
would veto it. That is his intention. And I don't see any changing of the
minds there.

But what he did say is that, I'm going to veto this bill and after that
let's see if we can sit down and come to a compromise.
The President's position and the principle that he will stick to is that
the neediest children should be served first, and that's the one he's going
to stand by.

Q What did God tell him, from prayers?

MS. PERINO: Well, you know, just one thing about that -- I think that the
rhetoric in Washington can get so heated sometimes. I think it is
preposterous for people to suggest that the President of the United States
doesn't care about children, that he wants children to suffer. There are
things I've been reading about feelings that the President -- that there's
-- ascribing feelings that the President has about children that are
absolutely not his view. You don't see the President suggesting that no
one cares about children.

The President's principle on this program, the State Children's Health
Insurance Program, is that the neediest children should be taken care of
first. The bill that they signed -- that they passed last night
specifically eliminated the requirement that states enroll 90 percent of
children in households under 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And
that's the reason the President is going to veto this bill.

The President cares just as much as anyone else about the children of the
United States.

Q Do you mean he rules out --

MS. PERINO: It eliminated --

Q -- that lower level?

MS. PERINO: -- it eliminated that requirement from the bill.

Q The requirement; but it doesn't rule the kids out of the program, does
it?

MS. PERINO: No, but it rules out the requirement, and the point is that
the President believes that the requirement is important for the neediest
children to be taken care of first.

There is a policy difference here. It's not about who cares about children
more than the other. It's a policy difference. And the President is
saying, let's take care of the neediest children first, let's not put
scarce federal dollars towards a program that was meant for the poorest
children and let it creep up to middle income families with incomes up to
$83,000 a year.

Q Doesn't he think the neediest -- does he think they are not --

MS. PERINO: And on that point, the President consistently since his --
since he has been President has tried to address the root causes of our
health care problems. If you go back to this year's State of the Union, he
wants to provide Americans, all Americans, with access to affordable health
care. And he has proposed ways to do that through our tax system and
making it more fair for people to be able to buy insurance on their own; on
portability, meaning allowing people who are changing jobs to be able to
take their health care with them; to be able to work with the states in
order to provide more money.

MS. PERINO: And another point on S-CHIP -- the other thing on S-CHIP is
that the states are welcome to spend as much additional money as they would
like on their program in their state. This is about a federal match
program. And so the President is going to veto the bill, and then we will
get about the business of talking about how to move forward.

Another point to make, just so that you all know, there is an extension of
this program in the continuing resolution. So no one is going to lose
their coverage because of this veto. There will be an extension and then
we'll move forward.

Terry.

Q Does it strike the President that 18 senators -- Republican senators
voted for this bill? Did that make him have any second thoughts about his
plan to veto?

MS. PERINO: The President does not have second thoughts. We have
continued to reach out to members of Congress to let them know what the
President's position is and why he feels that way. And he recognizes that
there are some on Capitol Hill who disagree. As the President, he has the
power to veto a bill, and that's what he intends to do.

Q Is he going to explore with any of these Republican senators their
thinking and --

MS. PERINO: Well, certainly we want -- when the President says to Nancy
Pelosi that he would like to make sure that we all sit down and have a
conversation, that will include the -- members of the President's own
party. I don't have any updates for you in terms of scheduling on that.
We don't know when we will get the bill to veto it.

Q Will there be coverage?

MS. PERINO: Of the veto? Stay tuned. I would assume so.

Q So is he assuming that the House would not overturn his veto? Because
it appears that the Senate would.

MS. PERINO: Well, we'll have to see. I'm not a vote-counter. But right
now it looks like the House would not be able to override the President's
veto.

Roger.

Q Dana, on a related thing, the Senate passed the CR last night, 94-1.
What's the plans for the signing of that? Does he have to do that by
Sunday night?

MS. PERINO: Just by Sunday night. So we'll keep you updated. He will
sign it before then, to make sure that everything -- all the trains
continue to run on time.

Q But he will be signing it?

MS. PERINO: He will sign it.

Q Does he have it?

MS. PERINO: I don't know.

Peter.

Q So what are you doing to keep the House Republicans in line on this to
prevent an override? You said you think that --

MS. PERINO: I think that the House Republicans are able to make up their
own mind and to look at a policy and make a decision. No doubt that it's
difficult, especially politically and in a communications -- it's a
communications challenge when there are advertisements running in your
district saying that you don't care about children, which is preposterous.
But if you stand on principle, you ultimately will win on the end because
you have good policy. And that's what the President --

Q We have lots of kids without health care.

Q So what's the political advice from here to Republicans who are in the
swing districts and close races and so forth who are finding themselves
targets of that and are getting pressure from a number of quarters on this?

MS. PERINO: Sure, there's a lot of pressure from all different sides, and
we're going to have an increasing number of spending bill fights going into
the fall. As you know, the Congress hasn't passed any of its
appropriations bills yet, and we're going to have a continuing resolution.
The President would prefer to have some bills so that we can actually make
sure that we're spending taxpayer dollars wisely.

And advice that the President would give, I think, is that they have to
think about the principle here. What the President wants to do is cover
the neediest children first. And that is a really good principle to stand
on.

Paula.

Q Another principle the President made in his State of the Union, like
you said, was to increase access. He's also indicated he's flexible --
maybe a refundable tax credit. I guess my question is, first of all, the
CR only extends through November 16th, so you only have a negotiating
period up until then. But Grassley indicated earlier in the week that he
believes from previous discussions that the real issue here is leveraging
CHIP to try to get some of these other proposals, to try to get a larger
package of health care through. Is the White House open to doing that,
whether linking it, or, you know, using --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on what future discussions are going
to be. It could be a range of things that they talk about. But I can tell
you this: In the State of the Union the President announced his health
care policies, and we did lots of outreach on that. And we would hope that
the Congress would try to take those up. And that was in the President's
budget. At the same time -- and in the same budget -- was the President's
proposal to increase the S-CHIP funding by 20 percent for the next five
years. And so those two things have been going on a parallel track -- we
didn't link them, meaning that you could only have one without the other.
They were both in the budget.

Q I know you didn't link them then, but now you're facing a real
showdown. Has the White House been insistent that you only want to do this
as a stand-alone bill or --

MS. PERINO: As I told you earlier -- probably in my office -- there's
going to be lots of discussions moving forward and we'll keep you updated
as we can.

Martha.

Q Dana, explain why you think the neediest wouldn't be helped first.
Even though this expands the poverty level, or goes above a certain
percentage, why do you think the other --

MS. PERINO: Well, the fact is that --

Q -- children would be jumped over? Just explain --

MS. PERINO: Sure. Well the fact is that there are -- I don't know which
report it is, there's lot of reports out on this -- but that there are many
children in the states who would qualify for S-CHIP who are not signed up.
They are not enrolled. And over the years the states have signed up
children of higher incomes that wouldn't necessarily fit under that 200
percent of poverty level or under. We would like to have more aggressive
searching for these other children who could be on this program and take
care of them first. And the other thing we don't want to do is have people
move off of private insurance onto government-run health care. We don't
think that's the right policy here.

Q Okay, but your -- your theory is that they should put more effort into
searching for these kids who aren't on it. That's what the --

MS. PERINO: We should sign them up.

Q -- emphasis should be before other children who others believe -- I
mean why not get as many on --

MS. PERINO: We don't think that we should move --

Q -- as possible, if they're not signing on, why not bring the others
in?

MS. PERINO: Well, because we don't think that we should move children who
are already able to be covered under private health care insurance should
be simply moved off of that and put on to a government program. If they
have private health insurance, that is a better system for the children as
well.

Q And that's just their incentive. You think that people who are on
private health care will just suddenly move to the --

MS. PERINO: That has been happening. That has been happening.

Goyal.

Q Dana, two quick questions. One: At the United Nations, that was
really one of best speeches President ever had in the U.N. He had a great
-- he had a strong warning for Burma, and Burma is still burning. There is
the bloodshed in yesterday's Washington Post editorial, (inaudible) save
Burma. But how can we save Burma? And what authority do you think
President had from the United Nations Security Council and international
community, especially China and Russia?

MS. PERINO: Well, we are very pleased that U.N. Envoy Mr. Gambari is going
to be going to Burma; he will be there tomorrow. We have called on the
Burmese to allow him to be able to meet with anyone he wants to meet --
military leaders, religious leaders, and Aung San Suu Kyi. And we will
have more information as we get it out of that meeting. It could take a
little bit of time over the weekend to get that. In addition to that,
yesterday Treasury Department tightened sanctions on many individuals, and
the State Department has just announced additional people who are placed on
their travel ban.

Q Also, in New York also, the President of Iran sounds like Hitler of
the 1940's and he said that as far as the nuclear issue is concerned his
country -- it is a closed issue.

MS. PERINO: Oh. Well, the President of Iran said a lot of things in the
United Nations but I think the one thing that he accomplished was to remind
the United Nations Security Council why they should remain tough, hang
together, and make sure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.

Toby.

Q Has any other nation --

MS. PERINO: Go ahead, Toby.

Q When the President met with the Chinese Foreign Minister yesterday,
did he receive any assurances at all that China will step in on this
Myanmar?

MS. PERINO: I wasn't there for their private discussion. I know that the
President was pleased that -- I think that the Chinese were helpful in
allowing to make sure the U.N. Special Envoy was allowed to get there, to
Burma.

Q The question is, you know, the United States has had sanctions on
Myanmar for years and years, and it hasn't really done anything. So why
would you think that these additional sanctions will accomplish anything
more?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that they've had impact in other places around
the world when we've used them. It's a good tool. And by tightening them
on the individuals we announced yesterday, in addition to this travel ban
-- we can do that from our end, but the President also spoke to Prime
Minister Gordon Brown today, in order to continue to have conversations
with our international partners to keep the pressure on, to make sure that
we are supportive of the Burmese people so that they can return to a free
society.

Q Dana, to go back to S-CHIP. I just want to clear this up. The
assertion that the neediest or some of the neediest children are not being
served rests on the belief that they haven't been found, and that is --

MS. PERINO: Well, that's part of the problem --

Q -- the entire reason for asserting?

MS. PERINO: Well, we've had lots of statements of administration policy on
this. It is an issue that is very complicated. But one of the things that
has happened over the past several years is that children who would be over
200 percent of poverty in their household have been added to the S-CHIP
rolls over time. And some states have started putting adults on that
program, as well.

The President thinks that we should return to the original intent of the
program, which is children under 200 percent of poverty should be covered
first, before others are added to the program.

Q Your rationale for believing that they aren't already covered is what?

MS. PERINO: I believe it's well documented. I can't remember the study,
though. I don't think that anyone is actually disabusing us of that
notion. The states -- one of the things that Hillary Clinton and Senator
Schumer put into their -- one of the bills was an allowance for people to
go up to -- that that state to go up to 400 percent of the poverty level.

Q Sure, but how do we know that the neediest kids are not being covered?

MS. PERINO: I'll get it for you. I'll get it for you.

Q And why is that, and is that, the only rationale you have for saying
that you can't --

MS. PERINO: No, the other point that we have is there is a -- the policy
difference; the policy difference of not wanting to have additional
government-run health care, socialized-type medicine, for this problem.
One of the things here is that we have a problem where we need to address
the root causes of it. And there are differences of opinion. Democrats
tend to want to address things with bigger government programs; Republicans
don't, and this President falls in that category.

Q Dana, just --

Q Dana, on the climate change speech the President gave today --

MS. PERINO: Let me go to Martha and then I'll go to Wendell.

Q Just one -- just one little bit from yesterday. Do you know the
percentages -- you said, for instance, that there are children who had
private health insurance.

MS. PERINO: That have been moved off.

Q That have been moved off. Do you know the percentages of those who
actually had it --

MS. PERINO: Let me see if I can get them for you.

Q -- who were moved off?

MS. PERINO: I'll see if I can get them for you.

Wendell.

Q On the climate change speech the President gave today, he said once
again that goals for greenhouse gas emissions is sufficient; better than
mandatory limits. Isn't it inherent in the President's argument that
mandatory limits would hurt economies; that the goals would not be as
aggressive as the mandatory limits?

MS. PERINO: Not necessarily. I think -- yes, the President believes that
the mandatory limits that Kyoto would have placed on the United States
would have been very harmful. And apparently, so did 98 other senators who
voted against Kyoto back in the Clinton administration.

Q I believe I'm talking about Kyoto at this point. I'm talking about
setting --

MS. PERINO: I'm making a point.

Q Okay.

MS. PERINO: The President has set a goal in 2001 for the -- I'm sorry,
2002 -- for the United States to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18
percent by 2012. That was a goal. And we measure it every year. And we
are held to account on that goal. And we, because of lots of different
actions in several different sectors across the economy, we are on track to
meet that goal. Countries that place -- that have goals strive to meet
them. That is the point.

But mandatory cuts on carbon emissions, the President believes, would not
be the right thing for the economy because, one reason -- the technology
does not exist today to be able to do that. On the other hand, if you look
at the Montreal Protocol, which reduced CFCs -- it's the substance that
helps eat away the ozone layer -- that technology existed. And so when
governments were putting money into those technologies, they were seeing an
immediate return on investment.

The only way right now, today, in order to stop carbon emissions coming out
of coal-fired power plants -- of which 54 percent of our energy is derived
-- is to turn them off. And that's why the President thinks that we should
move forward on several different parallel tracks: alternative energy, new
technologies that are cleaner-burning, and also some mandatory measures.
We have a renewable fuel standard that we want, 35 billion gallons by --
let's see -- 20-in-10, so it's 2017. So we have lots of different ways
that we can move forward.

But one of the things the President wanted to do today is to get beyond the
fights about Kyoto and to get to the post-Kyoto discussions that the U.N.
is going to be having, and bring together all the major economies. Because
in Kyoto the developing countries weren't a part of it. Now, what the
President did today is have all the major emitting countries, all the major
economies come together and decide, how can we establish a goal long-term.
And everyone is going to have to report what their midterm goals are, as
well.

Each state is different, each state has a different fuel mix: some use a
lot of coal; some use a lot of wind; some have natural gas. It's going to
depend on individual countries. Instead of a cram-down, the President
wants to see some bottom-up action.

Q You seem to be telling me that mandatory caps would have to be the
Kyoto caps; goals would be something else. My question is, isn't it
inherent in the idea of setting a goal, rather than mandatory caps, the
goal is not going to be as aggressive? Why would the caps have to be --

MS. PERINO: That's not necessarily true. A goal can be just as
aggressive. If you look at -- many countries that signed up to Kyoto, they
weren't able to meet those targets.

Q Let me try one more time.

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q If your mandatory cap is not as stringent as Kyoto required -- I mean,
you're telling me the technology does not exist to meet the Kyoto caps.
I'll agree with that. If you set a cap that is less aggressive, what is
the problem with that?

MS. PERINO: Let me take a step back. Whether you have a mandatory cap or
a goal, there are some countries that didn't meet their mandatory cap
anyway. So I think the President's point of establishing a goal that the
entire world can get behind is a better approach than having just a few
countries, and not including the developing world.

Look, the developing world is going to have to not only reduce greenhouse
gas emissions, but also figure out a way to keep their economies going.
Some of these countries, people live in terrible poverty and they need
energy in order to have jobs and heat their homes and light their homes and
their schools, and they need to have clean-burning technologies in order to
be able to do that.

One exciting thing that the President announced today is this international
global technology fund, which people could put money into, we could pool
resources, pool ideas and ingenuity so we can come up with the new
technologies. But then these other countries that are developing, like
China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, can take advantage of what they
have -- an ability to grow their economy without harming the environment at
the same time.

Q Dana, on S-CHIP, on the requirement that 90 percent of the children be
enrolled, 90 percent is a very high number, and it's quite difficult --

MS. PERINO: It's 95 percent.

Q -- 95 percent, well, it's even higher. It's quite difficult to reach
that number of children. Would the President be willing to compromise and
to go down, perhaps, to 85 percent?

MS. PERINO: We'll see what happens in the discussions after the -- after
he vetoes the bill. I don't know.

Q It almost seems as though the number has been set so high as to make
it unattainable.

MS. PERINO: Look, as a society we have a responsibility to help the
neediest people first, and that's what the President wants to do.

Paula, I'm going to go up here, since you've had a few. Elaine.

Q Dana, do you have anything more on this SVTS this morning with the
President and the Prime Minister? Were there any kind of agreements made
or additional steps that they might take on Burma?

MS. PERINO: On which, on Burma?

Q Burma.

MS. PERINO: They had a very good discussion, the Prime Minister and Gordon
-- and President Bush this morning. It lasted about a half an hour. There
was a discussion on Burma. It lasted about a half an hour. They covered
several topics. On Burma they agreed to continue to work cooperatively.
The EU is currently looking at sanctions, as well, and that would be
coupled with the ones that we've done, including -- and possibly others
around the world. So there was a commitment also to follow up after the
Mr. Gambari visit.

Q And then I have another question, unrelated to this. Apparently this
week Rush Limbaugh used the phrase "phony soldiers" to describe American
troops who oppose the Iraq war. Given that the President has commented
last week on the MoveOn ad of General Petraeus, and called it disgusting,
is this something that the President would feel compelled to comment on?

MS. PERINO: It's the first I've heard of that comment. I'm taking that it
is accurate; I have not heard it myself. The President believes that if
you are serving in the military that you have the right that every American
has, which is you are free to express yourself in any way that you want to.
And there are some that oppose the war, and that's okay.

Q And the use of the phrase "phony soldiers" to describe these --

MS. PERINO: It's not one that the President would have used, no.

John.

Q Back on climate, Dana. The President talked about his approach
bringing -- as a way to find consensus. But his approach is very different
from the Europeans. So isn't that sort of -- the consensus will only be
reached if Europeans --

MS. PERINO: I actually think that we're closer -- I think that a lot of
Europeans support this meeting that we've had today. And if you look at --
I know that there have been some comments out there, with some people
saying they wanted to have it the old way. The old way didn't work, and it
didn't include the developing nations. And this is a way to get everybody
talking on the same page, so that as you go into the 2012 -- post-2012 U.N.
discussions and negotiations in a post-Kyoto world, you have all those
major emitting countries on the same page, working together.

Q Do you see that attitude expressed by Europeans, that the old way
didn't work?

MS. PERINO: Certainly. I think that if you talk to any of your colleagues
who were there at the State Department meetings, you'll see that there's a
lot of support for what the President is doing. And we didn't do it on our
own, we had a lot of help. And we're looking forward to the Bali meetings
in December, and then additional actions over the year.

Q Dana.

MS. PERINO: Yes, Les.

Q Thank you very much. Two questions. The Washington Post quotes Irena
Briganti of FOX News as saying, "National Public Radio's lack of news
judgment is astonishing and their treatment of a respected journalist like
Juan Williams is appalling." And my question: Could you tell us how the
President feels about this tax-exempt and tax-supported network so
discriminating against an undeniably qualified reporter who he invited to
interview him?

MS. PERINO: That's a question for NPR to answer, for the decision that
they made --

Q No, no, I want to know what the President thinks.

MS. PERINO: I've never spoken to the President about what he thinks about
any particular organization. We enjoy working with them here at the White
House. They have really good correspondents that we like working with.

Q All right. The President does not believe that the First Amendment
prohibits him from speaking out against the Miller Brewing Company's widely
reported financing of an obscene parody of "Jesus Christ's Last Supper" in
San Francisco, does he?